Vinh-030
|born=April 28th, 2511Vinh's birthdate is 4/28. 28 ÷ 4 = 7. |died= |height=206cm (6’9") |weight=108kg |hair=Brown |eyes=Green |gender=Female |cyber= |rank=Petty Officer Second Class |tag=030 |servicenumber= |unit= |speciality=*Combat Engineer *Swordsmanship |class=I: 2525 |era= }} SPARTAN-030, born Vinh Young Kim, was a commando serving the 's during and after the . The daughter of Korean and Vietnamese-American colonists on , she was selected for the SPARTAN-II Program by Dr. in 2517 and brought to alongside seventy-four other children to undergo rigorous training and physical augmentation. Of all her fellow Spartans, Vinh's closest relationship was with her squadmate Isaac-039, which became romantic during the war, conceiving with him a son whom they named Daniel and placed in foster care under the watch of agent Erin Coney. Among the few to survive the SPARTAN-IIs' disastrous part in the , Vinh was captured shortly after by Covenant forces while Isaac was executed, and survived more than a month in captivity to escape during the through an alliance with the Jiralhanae Chieftain Attilus. Returning to take part in the , she learned her son had been conscripted as part of the and was wounded in action defending him. After the war, the legends built up around the SPARTAN-IIs made her a war hero, and her stature was put to use as a diplomatic envoy to surviving human colonies the UNSC was trying to reconnect with, including and Stratos. After losing her sight aiding in Attilus' eventual defeat, Vinh retired over the Navy's objections to alongside her fellow SPARTAN-II Maria-062. Biography Early Life (2511-2525) Childhood and Conscription Vinh was born in the capital of Jericho VII, the daughter of Minh Kim, a retired UNSC Marine, and Lilian Thuy, a waitress, whom had met while Minh was stationed on the planet fighting the various rebel factions active on the largest Outer Colonies. While she was only an infant, however, her father began struggling with the effects of posttraumatic stress that he had acquired serving his tour quelling riots and fighting against insurgents, which Lilian was unprepared to deal with. After waking up several times to find Minh sleeping with a loaded gun, she started fearing for her life and eventually ran out on them, leaving Minh to raise their daughter on his own. Though he was a loving and devoted father, Minh's demons sometimes got the better of him, causing episodes at work which prevented him from holding down a job, and terrifying Vinh the few times it occurred at home. Distancing herself subconsciously, Vinh engrossed herself in her schoolwork, excelling academically and developing a powerful physique in the planet's relatively high gravity. After his own experiences, her father was determined to keep Vinh from having anything to do with the military, and became noticeably irritated when she asked him about the soldiers who patrolled the potentially-volatile colony's streets. Thus, it came as a shock to Vinh to one day discover her father's military keepsakes, including his non-commissioned officer's ceremonial sword. Though angry at first when she found them, Vinh's father realized his daughter's curiosity would only grow if he tried to suppress it, and began teaching her the basics of kumdo when she was five years old. At the same time, however, Vinh's remarkable achievements in school had brought her to the attention of the as a potential candidate for the SPARTAN-II Program, and a member of the program's staff, Dr. Bernard Dalathorn, was sent to observe and interview her. His findings were sent to the project's leader, Dr. Catherine Halsey, who was interviewing candidates elsewhere in . Impressed that Vinh already possessed a degree of martial skill, Halsey approved her conscription for the program and replacement with a to ensure the kidnapping would go unnoticed. Training and Augmentation Vinh's abductors took her in the middle of the night, sedating her to keep her asleep as she was placed in for the two-week voyage through to , the center of UNSC military power where the Spartans were to be trained. When she finally awoke, Vinh was terrified to find herself one of dozens of children in a dark room far underground, each trapped inside a cryo bed chamber. One of the first to wake, she began to pound on the pod's glass begging to be let out, and although drill instructors soon came by to let them out, the trauma of her abduction would become the root of an acute case of claustrophobia which she would struggle with for the rest of her life. The day's troubles had only just begun for her, however, as she was herded with the other children into an amphitheater where they were formally inducted into the program by Dr. Halsey and her assistant, . Although the thought of never seeing her father again was devastating, the tenets of her martial art training made the promise of serving a higher purpose intrigued her. After a rude awakening early the following morning, Vinh was matched up with fellow trainees and Isaac-039 for the obstacle course known as the Playground. Vinh bonded quickly with Grace, but took an immediate dislike to Isaac, whose incompetence held them back during the exercise and caused them to finish in the lower half, though 's abandonment of his teammates prevented them from coming in last. To Vinh's irritation, however, he was routinely matched up with her in team-based scrimmages in under Kurt-051, along with and . Thanks to Kurt's keen intuition, James' perseverance, and later Isaac's skill supporting his teammates, Green was capable of besting some of the highest-rated teams, though its performance was average overall. Vinh found her own niche as a mechanic due to her friendship with one of the training complex's staff, Sergeant Moses Wheatley. At first learning from him in her free time, Vinh's quick grasp of mechanics led Chief Petty Officer to recognize a talent, and permitted her to learn from him in the trainees' individual development phase until she was well-versed in the repair and maintenance of virtually every UNSC vehicle. As a further part of her training, Vinh continued to practice kumdo in addition to the hand-to-hand combat training all Spartans received. As they came closer to the end of their training, the trainees were matched up against the Marines of to see how the Spartans fared against Insurrection veterans. Despite the Marines' benefit of experience, the Spartans' superior training led to victory after victory against them, with Vinh and Green Team playing a crucial role as they sabotaged or stole the Marines' entire fleet of . Humiliated by their repeated losses to children, Tango's commanding officer authorized his men to use live rounds and ordnance afterward, hoping to wound or even kill the trainees in retaliation. In , Green Team paid the price when a stolen Warthog they were riding in tripped one of Tango's landmines, and in the ambush that followed, Vinh and James were taken prisoner covering their teammates' escape. Brought back to the Marines' jail, their captors savagely beat James and intended to rape Vinh to take out their frustrations, but were stopped when the rest of Green Team, led by Isaac, mounted an impromptu assault on Tango's headquarters. While Kurt and Will carried out a diversion, Isaac freed their teammates and helped overpower their jailors before retreating, finally earning Vinh's respect. Two years later, all seventy-five trainees left Reach to undergo the final and most dangerous phase of their training: augmentation. The processes of genetically and physically altering their bodies would prove lethal to almost half the total candidates, and would leave another dozen irrevocably disfigured, bringing the program's failure rate to 56%. Vinh was one of only thirty-three to be successfully augmented, each of whom still required months of physical therapy to recover afterward. Returning to Reach after the therapy was complete, the Spartans trained to grow accustomed to their new abilities against their hopelessly-outclassed trainers in the tunnel networks underneath , even as news of an unexpected threat quietly reached the highest echelons of the UNSC. Rise of the Covenant Three months after the first field deployment of the SPARTAN-IIs, when Blue Team captured leader , UNSC approved their briefing on the alien that had razed the Outer Colony of and destroyed four military vessels sent to investigate. In response, the Spartans' timetable was moved up to equip them with the products of Project MJOLNIR, armor which would drastically increase their already extraordinary performance. Initially, Vinh was unsure what to make of the sudden appearance of this new threat and their frightening capabilities. En route to the MJOLNIR testing facilities, however, the SPARTAN-IIs were deployed on several counter-insurgency operations, including one on Jericho VII. Seeing her brother and sister Spartans in combat against the people of her homeworld shook Vinh far more than the alien menace ever could, and she began to look forward to being deployed against the Covenant. Their emergence came to her as fulfillment of the promise that she and her comrades would be defenders of humanity, rather than its enforcers. At last, their frigate, the , arrived near , only to discover a small Covenant ship prowling the system. Suddenly engaged when the alien vessel made an inconceivable intra-system slipspace jump, the Spartans were ordered to disembark aboard a Pelican dropship while the Commonwealth held their enemy off. Taken to the on the planet below, the Spartans were first introduced to the , which would become their single most important piece of equipment through the entire war. Donning the sealed titanium suit for the first time, Vinh's memories of her first night on Reach almost triggered an attack of claustrophobia, but feeling how powerful the armor worked to amplify her strength, she was able to suppress her fear and soon grew used to working within it. Vinh, however, would never be as entirely comfortable with her 'second skin' as other Spartans. Returning to orbit once they were outfitted, they learned the Commonwealth had taken substantial damage and attempted an impromptu boarding of the Covenant craft themselves, but Vinh missed her target with most of the others and learned afterward that had been killed in the attack. Sam's death was the Spartans' first casualty, and the fact it had occurred in only their first encounter with the Covenant led Vinh and many others to worry about what lay in the years ahead of them. Human-Covenant War (2525-2552) The First Red Team While the Covenant spread rapidly across the Outer Colonies in the early years of the war, as the point of first contact, the of Harvest became a symbolic and strategic center of conflict. In order to help ensure a UNSC victory, ordered a detachment of SPARTAN-IIs dedicated to the Harvest Campaign until its end: Red Team. Made up of nine commandos, nearly a third of all active SPARTAN-IIs, the unit would be tasked with high-risk missions against valuable Covenant targets as well as supporting mainline military forces in combat. Thus, its roster was most often composed of heavy weapons, demolitions, and engineering experts to equip them for the heaviest of fighting, but virtually every Spartan was rotated through at some point either as a mission specialist or to replace a casualty. Most of the time, these casualties were wounded Spartans who needed time to recover, but at least two Spartans were killed in action and listed missing by ONI in accordance with . Vinh's proficiency in repairing the heavy equipment the team needed made her one of the most frequent to serve in Red Team. Although the SPARTAN-II Program was classified, Red Team's close proximity to other UNSC forces inevitably led them into contact, and rumors of their actions quickly spread throughout the ranks. One such instance was a skirmish in 2529 when Red Team lured a group of vehicle-mounted Jiralhanae, the Jakas Pack, in the ruins of and ambushed them, resulting in the destruction of almost the entire pack. During the fighting, Vinh fought against their Chieftain, Attilus, personally, fending off his gravity hammer with a length of steel rebar. Although both opponents survived, the sight of a human soldier holding her own against such a powerful Brute was just one of the stories that served to boost morale among the UNSC's forces on Harvest. Such a boost became sorely needed, as the campaign soon dragged on into "five years of hell"As per Captain . Although Red Team was responsible for many victories across the planet, at different times under leadership of Spartans such as Kurt-051, Linda-058, and Joshua-029, Harvest's importance eventually declined as the Covenant struck farther into UNSC space, and after its second casualty, Chief Petty Officer Daisy-023, Red Team was recalled to be reintegrated with the rest of the Spartans. One final conflict lay in store for the unit, however, as the long-dedicated team was surprised to be reunited with , , and , who the other Spartans had thought killed by the augmentation procedures. This perception proved true, as their three comrades revealed they'd been resuscitated after and completed the process, and would be joining Red Team after carrying out joint refresher courses on . During this reintegration, however, two Covenant battleships arrived in the planet's orbit and, after blowing through the handful of Navy vessels in orbit, began landing ground troops. Abandoning training to come to the aid of local defense forces, Red Team split into two; Alpha-Red, made up of Jerome, Douglas, and Alice, would fall back to defend passenger shuttles evacuating civilians from , while the six members of Omega-Red, including Vinh and Isaac, harassed Covenant forces entering the outskirts of the city. While in Pirth, Isaac started to become distracted, and at Vinh's prompting admitted Arcadia was his homeworld, but thanks to her console quickly returned to the task at hand. Red reunited after the city fell, and with support from units newly-arrived from the , destroyed the foundations of a Covenant fortress. While they continued to mop up Covenant troops still on the planet, Alpha-Red left aboard the Spirit of Fire to pursue the remaining alien battlecruiser as it fled the system. After the battle was finished, Vinh departed Arcadia with the rest of Omega-Red aboard the damaged to rejoin the other SPARTAN-IIs, again without their three returned comrades. Battle of Jericho VII Within four years of the Harvest Campaign's end, the vast majority of the Outer Colonies had been found, invaded, and glassed by the Covenant war machine. Fighting in more than a dozen such battles, Vinh witnessed the same result again and again as the accomplishments made by ground forces were rendered inconsequential by the Navy's defeats in space, and when news reached the Spartans that her homeworld had been located in 2535, Vinh knew what to expect. While the Spartans made ready to deploy aboard the , however, Vinh was almost passed over for their mission in favor of Grace-093, who was the better explosives expert. Accosting , the Spartans' leader, Vinh asked the favor of being picked, desiring to do her part in making the Covenant pay a heavy price for her former home. While she admitted to having low expectations for the battle's outcome, she made it clear to John that she was driven by a sense of duty to her homeworld, not sentiment which might lead to irrationality. John granted her request, assigning her to Joshua-029's Red Team as their explosives specialist. Over the course of three days, the Spartans of Blue, Red, and Green Teams carried out dozens of operations to support front line UNSC forces from behind enemy lines, including hundreds of kilograms of explosives set by Vinh in the forms of and IEDs. Doing so took Red Team far from Jericho VII's major population centers, leaving Vinh distraught as she tried in vain to recognize anything from her surroundings. Isaac noticed this, and returned the favor she'd done him in Arcadia to help her focus in time for their most important objective objective: the assassination of the Covenant's ground force leader, an . After the rest of Red Team confirmed the route of the Arbiter's forces, Vinh and Will-043 were tasked with rigging a bridge in their path to collapse with explosive charges. Although the trap was successful in destroying several Ghosts and tanks, the Arbiter himself survived, and taking up a fallen Elite's , Vinh engaged him in melee combat. Although she was well-versed in the use of the alien blade, her opponent's lifelong training and energy-shielded armor gave him the advantage, but Vinh managed to disengage long enough for William to kill the Elite with an . Having fought a high-ranking Covenant soldier in such manner for a second time, Vinh would later devote more time to training in swordsmanship with both human and Sangheili blades. Thanks to the Spartans' efforts, most Marine forces were able to repel the Covenant with only minor casualties, with the exception of the 's , who were entirely wiped out in a critical defeat against overwhelming odds. With consent from the Resolute’s captain, Red Team was able to appropriate a and selected a Covenant landing point as a target of retaliation. As Blue Team created a diversion, Red managed to sneak past thousands of Unggoy soldiers to reach the landing site, where Vinh armed the nuclear weapon personally and detonated it as the next troop ship landed to offload thousands more of the aliens. Despite the severe blow dealt to their enemy, the Covenant's naval superiority forced the UNSC to abandon Jericho VII almost immediately afterward. Returning by Pelican to the Resolute, Vinh watched from an observation deck after their debriefing as her homeworld was glassed by the Covenant fleet. Battle of Kholo Using information gleaned from the former rebel leaders that had fled four years earlier, the Office of Naval Intelligence was finally able to gather enough data in 2539 to initiate a series of counter-insurgency operations and requested two SPARTAN-II commandos, Vinh-030 and Isaac-039, to carry out the operations. Brought aboard the [[UNSC Nightshade|UNSC Nightshade]], the pair were introduced to their mission handler, Lieutenant Erin Coney, and began their first operation in the capital city of . While Isaac was in the middle of a plainclothes op, however, the Covenant entered the system from slipspace and began an immediate assault on the planet, and the Spartans were cut off from any extraction. Abandoning their assigned mission, Vinh came to Isaac's defense in full armor and attempted to extract him from the colony as the Covenant's vanguard landed and local UNSC forces evacuated civilians to fallout bunkers the colony had prepared. Unfortunately, Vinh's appearance in her armor was noticed by the Covenant's leadership. Intent on destroying the demons, the dispatched a single corvette to obliterate their area with a pinpoint glassing beam, ensuring their destruction. The pair managed to survive, however, by freefalling down a mine shaft dug as part of the bunker network, escaping far enough underground to evade the plasma bombardment. After they regained consciousness from the fall, Vinh found herself trapped in her inert armor, and nearly suffered a claustrophobic panic attack from being locked in the titanium suit. Isaac managed to calm her down and help her out of her armor, and Vinh was able to use an emergency beacon to broadcast the in hope of rescue, but the Covenant picked up the signal first. Certain the demons, if any human, had survived, the Prophet tasked Field Master Vract 'Aeramee, with a under his command, to dig them out. Believing themselves in their final moments, Vinh and Isaac admitted feeling for each other as more than teammates and had relations which led to the conception of a son. Still lying undiscovered in orbit, meanwhile, Lieutenant Coney had picked up their distress call, and contacted a UNSC ship preparing to leave the system to requisition a squad of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers from the 7th Shock Troops Battalion. In a daring rescue, Coney and the ODSTs dropped in by orbital insertion pods and routed 'Aeramee's forces, commandeering his Scarab to finish excavating and extract the two Spartans. Outrunning Covenant fightercraft in a Pelican dropship, they returned to the Nightshade safely and made a randomly-coordinated slipspace jump before the alien fleet already engaged in further glassing of the world could stop them. Over the weeks-long journey back through slipspace, however, Vinh started experiencing unexplained pains in her midsection, and after an examination in the Nightshade’s medical bay, Erin revealed to her and Isaac that Vinh was pregnant. After explaining themselves to Erin, Vinh refused to abort the child in spite of their egregious breach in protocol, and sympathizing with them, Erin arranged for Vinh to be covertly transferred to the on Reach for the duration of her term. Over the following year, Vinh had almost no contact with the other Spartans apart from Isaac, who continued to do the work of two Spartans in counter-insurgency ops as part of Lieutenant Coney's attempts to keep up appearances. Erin's efforts to keep their child a secret were greatly appreciated, and in their time working together the ONI agent became a close friend to the both of them. Nine months in, Vinh gave birth to a boy whom the pair named Daniel Clarke, using Isaac's birth surname, after which she stayed with the child for three months even after Isaac had finished their string of missions, until at last Erin could no longer keep up a ruse for them. Leaving Daniel in an orphanage with the promise that Erin would keep a close eye on him, Vinh returned to her fellow Spartans believing she would never see her child again. Against all odds, Daniel would live through his infancy without any complications due to being a "Spartan 2.1," and would later become a Spartan-III as part of Gamma Company. Fall of Reach By the end of the second decade of the Human-Covenant War, nearly all of humanity's hundreds of Outer Colonies had either been glassed or lost contact, the Covenant were rapidly burning through the Inner Colonies, and the only naval commander in the UNSC who seemed able to contend with the Covenant in space was presumed dead. Furthermore, more than half a dozen SPARTAN-IIs had been killed or gone missing in action, all of which took a heavy toll on their remaining comrades. Though she had little hope the UNSC would win, Vinh dedicated herself to fighting its battles nonetheless in the memory of her fallen brothers and sisters, but the cycle of defeats at every turn weighed much more heavily on Isaac, though he took it on himself to hide his emotions to avoid distracting the others. Vinh took notice, but her partner denied it and told her he was fine, shutting her out and making her feel distanced from him. This led them to drifting further apart, and by 2552, they had ceased to be anything more than teammates again, although both Vinh and Isaac deeply regretted what had been lost between them. After almost twenty-seven years of costly defeats, the Office of Naval Intelligence finally conceived of a viable unconventional strategy thanks to Dr. Catherine Halsey, and the SPARTAN-IIs were recalled to the FLEETCOM Headquarters on Reach to receive the new, energy-shield equipped Mark V MJOLNIR Armor and be briefed by Halsey on what they had dubbed . With support from a and a refit UNSC Pillar of Autumn, the Spartans were to capture a Covenant vessel and use it to locate the alien capital of , then proceed to take high-ranking members of the Covenant's leadership hostage to force them into negotiating for a cease-fire. Just as they left aboard the Autumn, however, word was sent out that a massive Covenant fleet had just arrived over Reach, and the Spartans' mission was delayed for them to take part in its defense. One of twenty-two Spartans assigned to Red Team under , Vinh and her team descended to Reach's surface aboard , but were shot down by squadrons of Seraph starfighters and forced to bail out of the ship at high altitude. The fall would kill four Spartans and leave Vinh one of six seriously injured, with a torn deltoid, three broken fingers, and a disk herniated by the impact. Once the survivors regrouped, Fred divided them to carry out several different objectives and assigned Vinh to with the rest of the wounded Spartans and remaining Marines of to secure as a fallback position. On their way there, Vinh, Isaac, and Will were separated from the rest of the team and lost contact with them, but managed to Reach the entrance to CASTLE Base only to find it sealed. When Fred and eventually rejoined them, they brought news that all the other SPARTANs were now likely dead or out of range, but managed to gain entrance to the base thanks to Dr. Halsey, who had stayed behind inside. Taking them to CASTLE's medical wing, Halsey quickly took charge and assessed each of the SPARTANs' injuries, then instructed Vinh and Isaac to take stock of the base's perimeter defenses. The pair soon discovered that the Covenant had already found them, and in order to keep the base from falling into their hands, Dr. Halsey enacted , destroying CASTLE Base while she and the Spartans fled into the abandoned mine network below which they had trained in decades before. For eight days, the group remained trapped underground with the Covenant trying to root them out, reminding Vinh and Isaac all too much of their time on Kholo, and when they could find time alone reconciled with one another over their falling apart. In this time, Halsey was able to install a number of experimental upgrades to their MJOLNIR Armor, including a new linear accelerator for Vinh's energy shield, doubling its strength. Finally, after days of navigating the empty tunnels, the group discovered the entrance to a complex, and a chamber which distorted space and threatened to separate them until they reached the at the chamber's center, which seemed to be the distortion field's source. But the moment Dr. Halsey laid a hand on it, the crystal emitted a massive radiation spike which drew the Covenant to their location at once, and forced the SPARTANs to retreat once more. Fleeing into a narrow tunnel, Vinh and Isaac attempted to delay their enemies by collapsing the entrance with satchel charges, but a bolt from one of the Covenant's plasma weapons struck one of the explosives and set them off, burying the two Spartans as the tunnel caved in. While the other Spartans tried to hail them on COMs, they received no response and assumed them both dead. Unknown to them, however, Vinh had survived, saved from the blasts by her new overshield, though pinned under tons of debris. As she came to, claustrophobia began to set in as she realized she'd been buried alive, when Unggoy under command of Field Marshall Veral T’ramee dug her and Isaac from the rubble, bringing them before their commander. Inspecting the two of them, T’ramee decided to kill Vinh for personal glory and bring Isaac back for public execution at High Charity. But before he could, Isaac sprang up in Vinh's defense and slashed the Elite with a knife, dishonoring him by drawing the warrior's blood. Furious, T’ramee ran Isaac through with his energy sword, killing him instantly, and left the body behind as Vinh was dragged aboard the carrier Devout Believer. Imprisonment Even left in a cell within the carrier's brig, Vinh was denied the solitude to grieve for Isaac. Her jailor, a Jiralhanae Chieftain, revealed himself to be the same as she'd fought on Harvest, Attilus, who pestered her with fervid recollections of their battle. Soon, they were visited by T'ramee, who menaced Vinh with promises of a slow death before the Hierarchs themselves, shown for all the Covenant to celebrate—for which Vinh venomously thanked him, as it was her mission to reach and kill those very Prophets. Once T'ramee had left, Attilus revealed he shared in her spite of the Elites, and with little else to do while awaiting her execution—and seeing a rift she could perhaps exploit were she ever to escape—Vinh indulged his desire for conversation. Their wait would be longer than either expected, as the discovery of prompted High Charity to move from its home system for the first time in centuries, postponing the Devout Believer’s return. Their discussions began with discourse on close combat, Attilus taking particular interest in the martial arts she practiced to keep herself ready for any chance at escape, and over the course of two months moved on from combat to history, culture, and art, finding in some examples surprisingly common ground. Vinh never forgot, however, this was still an enemy who had killed Spartans before, and was careful not to reveal any sensitive information. On November 2nd, 2552, the Sangheili members of the were murdered on by Jiralhanae, and their High Chieftain Tartarus declared war on the Sangheili, causing the outbreak of the all across Covenant space. Though Attilus had been preparing for this eventuality, Field Marshall T'ramee anticipated him and struck first, leading his Sangheili in a purge of the unprepared Jiralhanae aboard. Attilus, however, escaped and fled into the brig where Vinh was held, awaiting the duel T'ramee's pride would demand. T'ramee found him there, and the two engaged in a duel between the Ultra's swords and Chieftain's gravity hammer, during which the shield door controls to Vinh's cell were destroyed. Just as the Elite would have dealt Attilus a killing blow, Vinh caught T'ramee by surprise and knocked him to the ground, decapitating him with the sharp edge of his own fallen helmet. Allying with one another, Spartan and Jiralhanae Chieftain fought for three days through the Devout Believer’s compartments, evading or ambushing security patrols with little to no rest and using scavenged Covenant weapons, including the pair of energy swords Vinh had taken from T'ramee's body. The pair's guerrilla war culminated in a battle on the cruiser's bridge, where the vessel's Fleet and Shipmasters were slain. With their shared enemies dead, Vinh and Attilus stared one another down, only for Attilus to bid her take a slipspace-capable and go where she may, voicing his hope it would be an insignificant, uninhabited world. Vinh rejected the notion of fleeing, feeling a responsibility to finish the fight so many of her comrades had died for, while also affirming Attilus' belief in Spartans as the only worthy challenge among humanity's forces. Using the Lich's limited fuel supply, she jumped to the edge of the Sol system, arriving a week later on November 10th. There, she was picked up by an ONI prowler and treated in their medical bay for malnutrition and the many injuries she'd accumulated through Reach's fall, her imprisonment, and subsequent escape. While recovering, Vinh was informed she'd earned the for her fifty-seven days as a captive, the only decoration the SPARTAN-IIs had yet to receive officially. Battle of Earth After a full day of rest spent aboard the prowler, Vinh began reviewing reports of the ongoing battle for Earth and submitted a request for deployment orders that she might take part herself. Despite their chief medical officer's objections, Vinh's overpowering of the guards sent to keep her in sickbay even without armor and the increasingly desperate state of the worldwide battle convinced the prowler's commander to oblige, and put her in contact with Ryu Base in Tokyo, headquarters for UNSC forces in east Asia after China's fall and where several Spartan teams were already operating out of. To her surprise, Vinh learned one of the officers there overseeing Spartan operations was Erin Coney, whom she hadn't heard from in several years, and was even more shocked to learn what Erin had to tell her when they spoke over a secure vid-com channel. Vinh had quietly accepted after the Battle of Reach that the son she and Isaac had conceived had likely died during the colony's fall, but Erin informed her that he had actually left Reach seven years earlier in 2544, recruited by ONI as a candidate for the . Experiencing a range of emotions, from relief and joy to anger and apprehension, none of which she knew very well how to process, Vinh set her feelings aside and demanded to know where her son was, to which Erin quickly complied. Met in Earth's orbit by Bravo 029, Vinh made for one of Japan's outlying prefectures to rendezvous with and assume command of Team Machete, her son's unit. Machete, however, missed their rendezvous, diverting last-minute to attack a target of opportunity. Setting out on foot, Vinh found them in the middle of ambushing an undefended convoy leaving Covenant territory just as reinforcements arrived, catching Machete off their guard. Carrying a Spartan Laser, however, Vinh was well-equipped to deal with the sent after them, and single-handedly held off the reinforcements long enough for the SPARTAN-IIIs to reorganize and come to her aid, finishing the stragglers quickly. While Machete was pleased with its latest victory, Vinh called out their team leader, Kodiak-G114, and berated him for putting his team in danger by acting impulsively in the first place. Though they accepted the senior Spartan's leadership, Vinh butted heads with Dyne-G217, who displayed a conspicuous lack of discipline, after which she learned was her son, Daniel. Privately embarrassed, she decided to withhold that knowledge for the moment and instead focused on the team's next objective. To her surprise, this would end up being to save the very enemies they fought against. Thanks to the insights Vinh provided into the Great Schism, the strategists at Ryu Base anticipated a Sangheili commander as the target of a Jiralhanae Kill Team, and dispatched Machete to intercede, hoping to gain the Sangheili as allies. After witnessing Vinh cut down traitorous Jiralhanae with a pair of Energy Swords, Field Master Tor 'Lukomee was indeed willing to join forces, at least temporarily. Together, Separatist and UNSC forces advanced on a Loyalist in Kanazawa. On the way, they encountered few Jiralhanae, and those they did usually retreated. As the allies began to suspect, they found when they reached Kanazawa the Loyalist commander had gathered his forces beneath the citadel's umbrella-like shield, defending them with the very structure they defended. While Vinh conferred with 'Lukomee and suggested she lead Machete inside covertly to knock out the shield generator, the Field Master dismissed such tactics as cowardice and proclaimed they had no need to fear meeting such traitors in open combat. Unable to make him listen to reason, Vinh went ahead with her plan as open battle began. Though Machete managed to infiltrate the citadel, they were halted upon being discovered by the Jiralhanae commander: Attilus. Pleased by the chance to at last learn which of them was the stronger warrior, Attilus delayed his troops' mass exodus, unable to resist challenging Vinh to personal combat. While the other members of Machete Team proceeded with sabotaging the shield generator, Vinh eventually resorted to using T'ramee's Energy Swords against Attilus' Gravity Hammer, Riftrender, the very weapons each had used during their harrowing fight for survival aboard the Devout Believer. Each knowing the others' strengths, Vinh countered Attilus' brute force with rapid slashes, but the fatigue of their trials in the preceding week had taken less of a toll on the more rugged Jiralhanae. Before long, Attilus drove the blade on the reverse of his hammer into Vinh's abdomen, grievously wounding her. Before he could finish her, however, the citadel's shield suddenly fell, and artillery guided by Morgana-G018 began hammering Attilus' troops. Given the choice between finishing Vinh and retaking control of his forces, Attilus chose to leave her alive, with other members of Team Machete rushing to her aid. While the Sangheili recovered from their losing battle to surge into the breaking Jiralhanae ranks, Machete Team urgently loaded Vinh onto Bravo 029 for evacuation to Ryu Base, and the medical facilities therein. Though troubled by Machete's lack of discipline and leaving Dyne still unaware of their relation, Vinh was content to know the younger Spartans had succeeded in their mission, and could be trusted to fight and survive on their own. Although the hospital level in Ryu Base was already overtaxed by the battle's mounting casualties on top of those still recovering after Reach and earlier battles, a critically injured SPARTAN-II was made a top priority, neglecting other patients by dedicating half of the most capable staff until Vinh had stabilized. Left alone to rest, she was eventually visited by Erin Coney, for whom Vinh had many questions. Daniel, Vinh knew, could not have been conscripted without Erin's knowing, and when asked, Erin freely revealed the details surrounding the SPARTAN-III Program, including that she herself had been responsible for putting Dyne forward as a candidate. While bitter Erin had manipulated the course of her son's life in such a way, Vinh appreciated Erin's honesty with her regarding classified operations which could see Erin killed on treason charges for revealing, and the pair managed to stay friends, catching up before Erin had to return to duty. There Vinh would remain, regretting being unable to take part in the battle further, until five days later, Ryu Base was brazenly attacked by a Type-52 "Dragon" Assault Barge personally commanded by Attilus. With Jiralhanae storming multiple levels of the building, Vinh, though unarmed, unarmored, and still recovering from her injuries, took it upon herself to defend the hospital level's cornered patients, many of whom couldn't be moved. At first using scalpels and surgical tools as weapons, Vinh slew several marauding Brutes looking to slaughter the defenseless humans and appropriated their weapons, holding off an entire lance until stumbling upon Attilus himself. Already having engaged Kodiak-G114 in combat, Attilus yielded when Vinh refused to back down, unwilling to fight and kill such a worthy opponent when she was not at her best. Hearing the other members of Machete had destroyed the Dragon, Attilus willingly retreated, leaving the Spartans alive. The next day, November 17th, most of the Covenant fleet withdrew to Africa where the led them through a to the , and those left behind scattered without a unifying leader. Just over a month later, the Sangheili flagship returned through the Portal to herald the ultimate joint victory of the Sangheili and the UNSC. After twenty-seven years, the greater part of Vinh's life, the Human-Covenant War was finally over, and Vinh could scarcely believe humanity had survived. Brokering Peace Despite the severity of Vinh's injuries, Spartans were always fast to heal, and by the time of the Shadow of Intent’s return Vinh had almost fully recovered. But less than a day after news broke of the Human-Covenant War's end, the slipspace portal leading to the Ark destabilized and collapsed just as the was passing through. Only the forward sections cleared the portal in time, and when search-and-rescue teams freed Arbiter from the wreckage, he revealed that John-117 had been in the aft portions and lost to slipspace. John was listed missing in action, but his public existence made the likelihood of his death impossible to ignore and was widely reported to the public as such, marking the end of ONI Directive 930's usage. Having just learned of John's exploits from Reach onward, singlehandedly saving mankind multiple times, while she was in hospital, the news of his supposed death was difficult for Vinh to process, even more so than those of so many other SPARTAN-IIs which came to light as Directive 930 was deactivated and official tallies of surviving SPARTAN-IIs began. A positive repercussion of these revelations, however, was that Vinh learned of the survival of several SPARTAN-IIs whom she had thought dead or had lost contact with over the years. She was able to reunite with a handful of them, including Maria-062, , and , with whom she could grieve and reminisce, but the beginning process of reconstruction soon separated them again. Although Vinh was eager to join the clean-up efforts in the aftermath of the Battle of Earth, hunting down stranded Covenant soldiers and participating in search-and-rescue operations, HIGHCOM and the UNSC would have a different sort of task altogether in mind for her. At the request of Lord , Vinh would sit in as part of a delegation attempting to negotiate with the as a whole, represented primarily by . What the UEG had failed to realize was the Huragok had no real governing body, or even any interest in sovereignty for themselves, quickly frustrating the UNSC ambassadors. Chafing to return to active duty, Vinh found it to be a waste of time all the more quickly, but as a technical expert found herself taking a liking to the Huragok themselves and made an unlikely friend in Likes to Hover, an Engineer captured by the UNSC after it was left behind on Earth by the Covenant. As weeks turned into months with Vinh's requests for deployment denied, she began to suspect the UNSC was being protective of her as one of the last SPARTAN-IIs, whom they were hoping to turn into a symbol and ambassador. To confirm these suspicions, she corresponded with Erin, and through her kept up with the activities of her son and the rest of Team Machete. Their after-action reports revealed them to be turning out as a capable team, putting Vinh much more at ease with the series of glorified appearances and mercy missions she was being assigned. At last, in early March, she was invited to the dedication of a , which she would have declined had she not heard that other surviving SPARTAN-IIs, including the recently-recovered remnants of Blue Team, would be present. Flown to Kenya, Vinh was surprised yet again by the number of her brothers and sisters whom had seemed to come out of hiding, but it was still little more than a handful compared to how many there had been at the beginning of the war. After the ceremony, several of her siblings spoke with the Arbiter to learn more about John's final days and the Sangheili who'd lived them with him, but Vinh, harboring ill-placed suspicions after her experience imprisoned and perhaps suspecting he'd been responsible for John not coming back, was not among them. She did, however, speak with and , both of whom expressed mistrust in Doctor Halsey to varying degrees. When Vinh and some of the members of Blue Team became defensive, Musa accused her and the other Spartans of blind loyalty to their imagined mother figure in Halsey, surprising Vinh, but Naomi was called away and Musa tactfully closed the subject before the argument could escalate. Left to contemplate that perhaps she had been more part of an inner circle among the Spartans than she'd realized, Vinh approached the memorial alone and lay a picture of Isaac among the myriad other photos of those who'd given their lives in service to Earth and her colonies. In the process, she discovered someone had scratched the number 117 on the memorial. After the festivities had wound down, Vinh boarded a plane bound for Sydney, Australia, to be formally debriefed for events stretching as far back as Reach, taking with her the intention not to be sidelined in a diplomatic role. Reexpansion (2553-2556) Arriving in the devastated city of Sydney, Vinh was quietly rushed to HIGHCOM's headquarters, , only to be made to wait on the whims of the UNSC's highest-ranked remaining officers. Over the course of a week, Vinh was ordered to remain on the facility's premesis and ushered intermittently into board rooms for sessions lasting minutes at a time between her interrogators dealing with the demands of stabilizing and rebuilding the parts of Earth ravaged by war. Between being left idle and recounting her ordeals during the Fall of Reach, subsequent capture, and experiences in the Battle of Earth, Vinh became more frustrated than ever until Erin finally caught up with her. While Vinh had managed to keep the secret of her relation to Dyne in her debriefings that Erin had so carefully worked on, Erin brought with her only bad news; that the higher-ups were considering her status as a Spartan and skill with swords as ideal selling points for an ambassador with Sangheilios, while her son's team would be folded into the developing Spartan branch. Among these higher-ups was Admiral herself, but unable to stand much more pointless waiting, never mind ambassadorial work to the Sangheili, Vinh begged her longtime friend to fight the decision. While uneasy with the prospect of going up against the head of ONI and her former mentor, Erin managed to outmaneuver Parangosky and secure placement for both Vinh and Team Machete aboard the [[UNSC Themistocles|UNSC Themistocles]], an outdated light carrier being prepared for a special mission: the Themistocles would be one of a dozen ships making round-trip voyages to the sectors of human space ceded during the Covenant war, reestablishing contact with lost colonies and conducting surveys for their recolonization. Reclaiming the Colonies As the crew settled in during their first long slipspace jump, Vinh began to find difficulties in familiarizing herself with her son's team. While Dyne was aloof and usually interested in hanging out with members of his own team more than interacting with her, Vinh also had to contend with Morgana's hero-worship of SPARTAN-IIs, something which made her uncomfortable. Her friendship with Erin became more important than ever, as Vinh was now without the large cadre of her own brothers and sisters in the SPARTAN-IIs, and sought Erin's counsel in how to connect with the younger Spartans. In time, however, she found her way to reach them through their team leader and Dyne's best friend, Kodiak, when she happened upon him training with melee weapons. After suggesting a few pointers, she offered to mentor him in the use of Energy Swords. The excitable teenager took to the idea quickly, and as Dyne would regularly stop by to talk with Kodiak, she was able to develop a rapport with him as well. Soon, Vinh fell comfortably into her new set of daily routines in the stable environment of the Themistocles, a status quo that would last for nearly the next four years. Warlord Attilus Retirement (2556-2558) Rogue Hunting (2558-) Talitsa Aleria Personality and Traits Portrait= |-| Dossier= Precocious from childhood, Vinh was nothing less than what would be expected of a SPARTAN-II candidate: startlingly intelligent—her aversion to events in her home life pushing her to study and hone an inherently prodigious mental capacity; and remarkably fit—the result of living on a planet with relatively high gravity. While other candidates outclassed her in both of these categories, she possessed something many of them lacked at such an early age: a rigid self-discipline where her peers—their exceptional traits allowing them to run rampant unchecked—could often be characterized as savage. This translated to her quickly adapting to the Spartans' training, and the pride she took in excelling early led Vinh to embrace the the program's rhetoric aimed at indoctrinating the Spartans and instilling loyalty in them towards the UNSC. She cared little for the more lax recruits, and as such never rose to prominence as a leader, though Isaac's personal loyalty towards her and their teammates did eventually help her find more than duty among their ranks. Like her comrades, Vinh lived and breathed her role as a special forces operator, a commitment which, in combination with her augmented strength and speed, enabled her to stand as one of the preeminent commandos and combat engineers in the UNSC. As part of a unit created to overcome challenges often deemed impossible, Vinh would be the architect behind some of the most audacious feats of construction of the Human-Covenant War, rigging entire battlefields to change at precise moments and modifying vehicles with what materials were immediately available. The utter professionalism these tasks demanded made her appear taciturn even without the enclosed, faceless visage of her MJOLNIR armor. In truth, however, the SPARTAN-IIs were incredibly close with one another, having spent nearly their full lives together, and merely had difficulty interacting with people from outside their tight-knit cadre. Among themselves, the Spartans could read one another unspoken, and were close enough personally to often border on fraternization—and far exceed it in the case of Isaac and Vinh. How much of this was incidental, however, and how much intentional, began troubling Vinh after the end of the war and Isaac's death. Reconnecting with fellow Spartans who had washed out during augmentations or otherwise been separated for years, finding them bitter about what the program had done to them, surprised Vinh and led her to question to what extent the core unit of SPARTAN-IIs under John-117 had been indoctrinated. Though admitting the program had been unethical from the start, she could not bring herself to personally blame Halsey or any of those involved whom she'd known in the wake of what good the SPARTAN-IIs had done. Her tribulations came to a head when Serin Osman offered her the chance to view her own candidate file and ultimately chose to refuse, reasoning the girl she might have been would have been long dead by then. Weapons and Armor * Issued to all members of the SPARTAN-II Program in 2525 during the Battle of Chi Ceti, the first iteration of the armor to be used by SPARTANs in the field lacked energy shielding, instead offering protection against Covenant plasma weapons by a refractive coating over an armored alloy shell. Completely vacuum-sealed and nearly immune to EMP and radiation, the suit could allow its wearer to survive and function in extreme environments, including EVA. Vinh used a Mark IV suit through almost the entire Human-Covenant War, succeeded by the Mark V twenty-six years later in 2551. * Designed using data gathered from the SPARTAN-IIs' use of the Mark IV, at a quarter ton the Mark V weighed half as much as its predecessor and was capable of housing a to further boost reaction time and intelligence gathering capabilities. However, its most significant improvement was the incorporation of a self-recharging energy shield to protect the user against all forms of attack. Vinh's personal suit was upgraded in 2552 with a new linear accelerator which doubled the armor's shielding output, nicknamed an overshield. * Damascus Testing Facility designed the EOD variant alongside the standard MJOLNIR for users handling explosive ordnance up close. Both the Mark IV and V versions which Vinh used defended against the force of detonations by channeling pressure waves around and away from the wearer, increasing their likelihood of survival. As a combat engineer, Vinh's use of explosives often demanded use of the specialized armor. * Possessing a high rate of fire and accurate at long range, the BR55 made for an excellent rifle. Vinh first used the prototype XBR55 against infantry during the Harvest Campaign until the standardized version entered service in 2531. The weapon gradually replaced all other marksmans' rifles except the Army's M392 DMR, until in 2548 the Heavy Barrel version made it a universal choice in the UNSC military. * Developed as part of ONI's Project: GUNGNIR, the M6 is one of few UNSC directed energy weapons. The weapon emits a narrow, powerful beam of red laser light supplied by a built-in battery cell, effective against infantry, vehicles, and aircraft even at long ranges. Vinh was an expert on the expensive weapons and often carried one in battle, likely one of the only SPARTANs rated to take apart and replace their charge packs in the field. *Vinh's Formerly the blades of Veral T’ramee, with which the Elite killed Isaac-039, Vinh appropriated the pair of Energy Swords after killing T’ramee and used them extensively in her escape from the Devout Believer and the Battle of Earth. Afterward, Vinh decided to keep them as both trophies and a remembrance for Isaac, putting them to good use against the Covenant remnant. While no different from most other swords mass-produced for the Covenant military, apart from the Covenant hieroglyphs bearing their former owner's name, Vinh wields them with exceptional skill for a human. Having already studied the alien weapons extensively, her technical skill soon saw her learn how to recharge the weapons and has since built recharging ports into her armor. Because the blades inherit the legacy of Sangheili swords built for tetradactyl hands and extend parallel to a human forearm rather than perpendicular, Vinh also continues to develop and document her own two-bladed style of fighting with them, which she passed down in mentoring Kodiak-G114. Notes & References *This author, for one, did not like SPARTANs being killed as redshirts. So, creates article.